Hong Kong veteran Johnnie To’s new romantic comedy as well as short films directed by Cannes-winning filmmakers from the Philippines and Thailand will open the 35th Hong Kong International Film Festival in March.
Organizers announced Thursday that To’s “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” will open the event along with “Quattro Hong Kong 2,” an omnibus film comprising four shorts set in Hong Kong that was commissioned by the festival.
The shorts were directed by Thailand’s Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the Philippines’ Brillante Mendoza, Hong Kong’s Stanley Kwan and Malaysia’s Ho Yu-hang.
Apichatpong won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival last year for the drama “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.” Mendoza was named Cannes best director in 2009 for the crime thriller “Kinatay.”
“Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” which pairs Chinese actress Gao Yuanyuan with Hong Kong heartthrob Louis Koo and Chinese-American Daniel Wu, is part of To’s recent push into the mainland Chinese market. The veteran director is best known for his stylish action thrillers but is now hoping to reach a broader audience in China with light comedies.
As their contributions to “Quattro Hong Kong 2,” Apichatpong shot the segment “M Hotel” in Hong Kong’s Yau Ma Tei residential and shopping district and Mendoza made “Purple” — a reference to the color of Hong Kong’s official flower, the bauhinia. The Philippine filmmaker shot at Hong Kong’s flower market and the outyling fishing village of Tai O, best known for its houses on stilts.
Malaysian Ho shot the comedy “Open Verdict,” starring veteran Hong Kong actress Wai Ying-hung, while Kwan contributed “13 Minutes in the Lives of …,” which he said is a sentimental look at a Hong Kong bus ride.
“For a filmmaker who is spending more and more time in mainland China these past few years, coming back to Hong Kong is especially emotional. The emotions are complex,” Kwan told The Associated Press.
The Hong Kong festival will also feature a retrospective of Wai’s movies and a master class by Venice-winning Chinese director Jia Zhangke. Organizers will also stage the Asian premiere of “Vampire,” the English debut of Japanese director Shunji Iwai starring Kevin Segers, Rachael Leigh Cook and Keisha Castle-Hughes. Iwai is a music video and TV director-turned-filmmaker who made his name with the 1995 romance “Love Letter.”
The Hong Kong festival, which runs from March 20 to April 5, will feature some 300 movies from 56 countries.
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Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
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The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
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